The cognitive approach to the study of emotion is grounded in the belief that individuals are active agents and are able to exercise control over thought processes, motivation and behavior. Cognitions, causal thoughts in particular, play a central role in behavior and affect generation. Emotion depends upon how the individual cognitively appraises an event, not the event per se. Vallerand (1987) has proposed an intuitive-reflective appraisal model for self-related affects to examine the roles of intuitive (e.g. subjective performance assessment) and reflective (e.g. causal attributions) appraisals in the generation of self-related and general-type affects. The purpose of the present study was to test this model in a competitive fencing tournament and ascertain the relationships between three cognitive antecedents (intuitive appraisal, causal attributions, and intellectualization) and self-related and general-type affects. Results showed support for the main postulates of the model. Intuitive appraisal was found to have important and necessary effects on self-and general-type affects. This intuitive appraisal was shown to have more of an effect on affects than objective outcome (win/loss). Reflective appraisal processes, in the forms of causal attributions and task importance, were not necessary for affect generation, though task importance played a significant minimizing role in the experience of positive self- and general-type affects, particularly in the perceived failure condition. The results of the present study promote the use of sport specific models in the understanding of the relationship between athletes' cognitive antecedents and affect generation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/4484 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | McPherson, Terry Lee. |
| Contributors | Fortier, M., |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 125 p. |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds